Photoshop Elements 3 Solutions, Pt. 2.

Tinting Images

I like grayscale images. I really do. But sometimes they benefit from a color tint. The
tint need not be overwhelming. In fact, sometimes a subtle shade of yellow or red is all
it takes to give a grayscale image an added pop so it jumps from a page.

Take, for example, the 1761 engraving from a Russian bath shown in Figure 2.16.
The image was published in black-and-white in a book I wrote on bathing. It looked
fine. However, when I went to place the image on my website, it was lacking. It needed
to stand out more.

Note : This will not work
if you are in Grayscale or Bitmap mode.it works only if you are in RGB or
Indexed Color mode. If you need to, choose Image > Mode > RGB or Image
> Mode > Indexed Color to convert the image.

2. I selected Colorize. The image was converted to the hue of the current foreground
colorÂin this case, red.

3. I then slid the Hue and Saturation sliders to select variations of color.

4. When I got the tint I wanted, I clicked OK. The tinted image is shown in
Figure 2.17.

Figure 2.17: To tint, make sure the Colorize option is selected in the Hue/Saturation dialog
box (left). The tinted image (right).

You can tint an image using the Hue/Saturation dialog box (Enhance > Adjust
Color > Adjust Hue/Saturation) from within Quick Fix as well. You can also use the
Quick Fix Color group. Start by sliding the Saturation slider completely to the left.
Then adjust the Tint slider to introduce a tint. You can then use the Hue slider to
introduce new tints. (When you adjust the Saturation, Hue, Temperature, and Tint
sliders, Commit and Cancel icons appear next to the word Color. Select Commit when
you are satisfied with the image. Select Cancel if you are not. Until you select either the
Commit or Cancel icon, the Reset button located above the After version of your
image is dimmed and inoperable).

Eliminating or Diminishing Dust, Scratches, and Electronic Noise

Most digital images suffer from dust, scratches or other marks, or electronic "noise."
Even high JPEG compression can cause unwanted artifacts, which show up as
"blocks" and are especially obvious in areas of continuous tone such as a vast blue sky
or skin, and can appear as chunky blocks of pixels. Any of these flaws can detract
from the look of a digital image. With smaller prints, or when viewed on a monitor,
these artifacts are not as noticeable, but as prints get largerÂor if an image is magnified
over 100 percentÂthese artifacts can be quite visible. Fortunately, Photoshop
Elements offers several tools for getting rid of them.

Note: Low-cost, third-party
solutions to reducing noise are available. Check out Dfine, a Photoshop
plug-in from nik multimedia that offers more options than Photoshop's new
Reduce Noise filter (A trial version of Dfine is included on the CD).

Reduce Noise Filter

The newest and most useful tool in the Photoshop Elements arsenal is the Reduce
Noise filter. The filter can be applied from either Quick Fix or Standard Edit. Look at
Figure 2.18 (left) and you'll see a shot I took in extremely low light. I managed to get
the shot without using a flash by boosting my digital camera's ISO setting to 1600. I
got the shot, but increasing the ISO introduced a lot of "noise" or "grain" into the
image. Figure 2.18 (right) shows a magnified view and reveals the noise more clearly.

Figure 2.18: I shot this in low light without a flash by boosting my digital camera's ISO to
1600 (left). The magnified view shows the noise clearly (right).

To reduce the noise, I used the Reduce Noise filter (Filters > Noise >
Reduce Noise). The filter is available in both Standard Edit and Quick Fix.
Figure 2.19 shows my settings and the results.

Figure 2.19: My Reduce Noise filter settings and the results.

How did I come up with my settings? I just used trial and error until I got
something that looked less "noisy" but still maintained edge detail as well.